After beating Amazon with shrewd ads, Flipkart has a new strategy for next sale

Flipkart has stocked up its inventory on televisions, smartphones and appliances expecting good pick-up in sales this week.Shambhavi Anand&Writankar Mukherjee | ET Bureau | October 04, 2017, 08:20 IST

Amazon India ran two times more television advertising than rival Flipkart during the festive season, according to latest data from television audience measurement firm BARC India, even though research reports suggest that Flipkart generated more than double the business of the Seattle-based behemoth.

Flipkart also wants to give Amazon a run for its money during the next festive sale which begins on Wednesday by unleashing a combat sale to whereby it will match the prices of smartphones, television sets and appliances offered by Amazon, despite not running an official sale to sweep away as many shoppers as possible, and that too with very little marketing expense, three industry executives said. Amazon will start its next festive sale from October 4-8.

Flipkart’s marketing chief Shoumyan Biswas said the marketplace wants to write a new playbook for marketing. “We believe that the concept of dominance in share of voice leading to dominance in share of market is becoming less and less effective. Being more relevant to your target audience in a manner that is engaging and innovative is the bigger requirement of the day,” he said.

However, Flipkart did not respond to an email on its combat sales strategy till Tuesday press-time. Amazon too did not respond to an email seeking comment on its ad spend. The CEO of an online-focused television maker said Amazon is trying to get as many eyeballs as possible with high advertising spend to convert them into clicks, whereas Flipkart is betting on its pull factor knowing well that customers will compare prices on both platforms before buying.

“Hence, Flipkart will match prices for all top-selling products during the Amazon sale,” he said. Online craft brand Exclusive-Lane co-founder Dhruv Goyal said Amazon’s next sale from October 4-8 is going to be a big one compared with their first one which was a bit early considering consumers are in the festive shopping mood now. “We expect them to churn out more numbers. Flipkart may compete tight by reducing prices on certain categories during these days,” he said.

Flipkart has stocked up its inventory on televisions, smartphones and appliances expecting good pick-up in sales this week. The sellers on the marketplace have picked up almost 60% of the stock of what it had done for the Big Billion Days sale from the brands. The festive season is the biggest bet for the two ecommerce giants, both in terms of sales and building consumer loyalty.

Amazon wants to pull out all stops to grab pole position in the Indian ecommerce industry and out-spend its Indian rival on advertising through the year. BARC data shows that Amazon had advertised three times more than Flipkart on television from January to September, putting out 4,71,129 insertions (number of times an ad airs) as against 1,08,974 insertions of the Indian rival. And in run-up to the festive sales in August and September, Amazon had 1,58,280 insertions compared with Filpkart’s 77,060.

A latest report by RedSeer Consulting has said that the Flipkart group had 2.3 times the business of Amazon during the festive days, partially driven by higher pre-sales consumer awareness. Amazon expects to bridge the gap with the upcoming sale this week and may even undertake a third one immediately before Diwali.